


Dulce

by pocketmumbles (livelikejack)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Baking, Coda, Gen, Post-Canon, Scott McCall As Primary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 17:13:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4843658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livelikejack/pseuds/pocketmumbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every Saturday, they used to make conchas and hot chocolate.</p><p>
  <em>(Episode Coda to 5x10 "Status Asthmaticus")</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dulce

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Scott-centric oneshot that is somewhat of an episode coda to 5x10 "Status Asthmaticus," and set in some nebulous aftermath of Season 5A where Scott is actually allowed a stretch of downtime and recovery. The only characters in the fic are the three listed in the tags.
> 
> I have no Mexican heritage and do not speak Spanish; my knowledge of making conchas and hot chocolate come from looking up recipes rather than actual teaching/experience. I apologize greatly for any inaccuracies.

Every Saturday, they used to make conchas and hot chocolate.

It was a tradition, or the start of one, at least. A Saturday treat, warm and sweet and filling him up. The conchas used to seem so big, held between both hands while hot chocolate dribbled down his wrist. It was equal parts treat and tradition, conchas and hot chocolate, the sweet aroma spreading through the kitchen until he felt hazy in the glow of happiness and home. Those quiet Saturdays felt so precious. Those Saturdays felt like magic.

It was a tradition, or the start of one, at least. After Dad, so many leftover conchas on Saturdays didn’t feel quite so magic anymore. After Roxy, cradling his hot chocolate tight in his hands didn’t feel quite so precious anymore. And after…and after…

By the time his entire world flips upside down, the tradition has long died out. Nothing really caused its definitive end, just a lack of interest from him, a lack of time from Mom, a lack of need, a lack of want. Hot chocolate from supermarket packets were easier to make, thin and sugary and topped with marshmallows instead of a thick froth, and no one at school seemed to know what _pan dulce_ was, anyway.

Sometimes, he used to trip down the stairs on a sleepy Saturday morning and find Mom in the kitchen, staring dry-eyed at slowly rising balls of dough. After coming home extra late from work with hands scrubbed red and raw, sometimes. After visiting Abuela at the cemetery, sometimes. After Scott came home extra late with patched together excuses and the unmistakable stench of dried blood, sometimes. A lot of those times.

When he was sixteen and she’d watched him change into a monster for the first time – that Saturday morning, Scott tripped down the stairs and didn’t find Mom at all. He found half-finished conchas, though, the dough reeking of yeast and slimy as he dug it out of the mixing bowl.

It’s a good thing that they let the tradition peter out years ago, he thinks.

 

* * *

 

Flour. Eggs. Yeast and water. A little bit of salt. Scott’s gone through the steps hundreds of times, and his hands move of their own accord while his mind wanders. It’s very late on a Friday night, or maybe very early on a Saturday morning. He can’t quite remember anymore, lost track some time between one heartbeat and the next.

Fifteen minutes, Mason had said. His heart had stopped for fifteen minutes. Scott stares up at the clock next to the fridge and watches the hands tick by. Fifteen seconds. Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. It feels like an eternity, just staring and waiting for time to pass by. But looking down at the bowl of dough, smooth and sticky and barely risen since he set it down, fifteen minutes feels like no time at all.

Scott covers the dough and lets his eyes slide shut. He’s so tired. The skin of his side and arms is smooth now, unbroken and new. Healed. All of his wounds have healed, and they shouldn’t hurt anymore, and they don’t hurt anymore. They can’t hurt him anymore, he can’t even feel the tearing of claws through flesh or the sharp stab of betrayal. It’s not a phantom pain, because he doesn’t feel it.

It’s very late at night, or maybe very early morning. He can’t remember if he’d slept at all, after Mom had kissed him goodnight. Every time he’d closed his eyes and his body had begged for rest – his heart beat too strong, too loud, pounding in his ears and making his entire body jolt. When he’d opened his eyes again, he’d found himself in the kitchen, staring dry-eyed at a slowly rising ball of dough.

“Scott?”

Mom steps carefully into the kitchen, pajamas rumpled and eyes still bleary with sleep. “Are you okay?” she asks.

“Sorry,” he says, shaking himself quickly. The kitchen is a mess, flour strewn across the counter and the sink piled high with dirty dishes. “I’ll clean up, sorry, I didn’t mean to, I was just – sorry.”

“Sweetheart.” Mom wraps him in her arms and tucks her chin over his head. The clock ticks by as Mom hugs him, three seconds, five seconds, ten, fifteen. She cradles Scott’s face in her hands and presses a kiss to his forehead. “What are you making?”

“Conchas, I guess,” he says, glancing down at the mixing bowl. Sunlight streams through the window, weak and barely warming the cold kitchen. It’s morning, slightly-less-early morning, and the dough has probably risen enough. He should have thought to set a timer. He hasn’t been thinking much at all, lately.

“Conchas,” Mom repeats. She smooths his hair with a watery smile. “Can I help?”

 

Knocks echo from the front door, hesitant and almost too soft to be heard in the kitchen. Mom glances at the door, then at Scott, then sets down the dough and starts to wipe her hands clean. “I’ll get it,” Scott says. He hurries out of the kitchen before Mom can protest.

Mason freezes when Scott opens the door, eyes wide and body half-turned to disappear down the driveway. “Uh, hey,” he says, turning back to face Scott. “I was just, um. I was in the neighborhood, and I thought I’d…well…” He heaves a long sigh before finally meeting Scott’s eyes. “How are you doing?”

Scott nods to himself. He wasn’t the only one who had been hurt that night. He wasn’t the only one who had been left alone and terrified out of his mind. He’s supposed to give his friends hope, and he can’t do that if he keeps checking out instead. “Did you want to talk about what happened?” he asks.

Mason blinks. “I wanted to see how you were holding up,” he says, putting an odd emphasis around _you_. His shoulders tense, half determined and half bracing. “And if you need to talk about what happened, yeah, then I want to talk about it. I brought chocolate,” he adds, holding up a grocery bag.

The bag is heavier than Scott had expected, and he peers into it to see a dozen different chocolate bars. “Wow.”

“Yeah, uh, I didn’t know what kind of chocolate you liked, so I just grabbed a bunch,” Mason says sheepishly. “Figured that way there’d be at least one that you liked. …If you even like chocolate in the first place. Oh man. I am so sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed you like chocolate-”

“I love chocolate,” Scott assures him. He pushes the door open a little wider. “Would you like to come in?”

“Sure,” Mason says, stepping in quickly as if he expects Scott to slam the door in his face. “Sorry to just barge in on you like this, I just – whoa, what’re you baking?”

“Conchas,” Mom says, placing the last ball on the cookie sheet. She wipes her hands and hurries around the counter to pull Mason into a hug. “Hi, Mason. It’s good to see you.”

“Mason brought chocolate,” Scott says, holding up the grocery bag. “A _lot_ of chocolate.”

Mom laughs as Scott sets the bag on the counter. “Well, I hope you’ll help us eat some of it, Mason,” she says. “And if you can stay longer, help us eat some of these conchas. They have to rise for another hour, but they don’t take long to bake at all.” She pulls out a bar of bittersweet chocolate and blinks, tilting her head as the barest of smiles plays around her mouth. “I think we still have some cinnamon sticks,” she says. “Mason, would you like some Mexican hot chocolate?”

“Uh, sure!” Mason finishes sorting the chocolate into neat piles on the only clean section of the counter. “I’ve never tried it before, but it sounds delicious and I love chocolate. Can I help?”

“Why don’t you help Scott finish the conchas?” Mom says. “I know we have some almond meal in the garage; I’ll be right back.”

Mason scoots closer after Mom disappears down the hall. “What are conchas?” he asks in a loud whisper.

Scott smiles while he measures out flour and sugar for the topping. “It’s a Mexican bread with a sugar topping. A sweet bread – _pan dulce_.”

“ _Pan dulce!_ ” Mason exclaims. “Wait, are these ones that bread with the shell designs on top – oh.” He slaps his forehead. “ _Concha_. Shell. Duh. I love those!”

“You’ve had them before?”

“My mom’s friend used to take us to this Mexican market a few towns over all the time,” Mason says, watching Scott knead the topping mixture into a ball. “We’d all get to pick out our own. I could never pick between the pink conchas and the chocolate ones.”

“I think I always liked the pink ones the most,” Scott says. He nods at the cupboard behind Mason. “There’s food coloring and cocoa powder in that cupboard, if you don’t mind getting them.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” Mason grabs the items from the cupboard and washes his hands. “How do I add them?”

Scott divides the mixture into separate bowls. “Just drop some in and start mixing it in with your hands. Here-” He reaches over at the same time that Mason squeezes food coloring into the first bowl, and a bright red drop splashes onto his hand.

He stares at the drop rolling serenely along his hand, seeping into the cracks of his palm and staining a faint red smear into his skin. Dimly, Scott notices Mason stilling next to him, but he can’t look away from the blood-red liquid spilling down the side of his hand. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. It isn’t warm, and it doesn’t smell metallic, and he knows, he _knows_ that it isn’t real. He’s panicking over nothing. He’s being ridiculous. Scott musters up a smile and pushes the cocoa powder towards Mason. “Do you want to mix the chocolate topping?”

“Sure,” Mason says, gripping the bowl tight. He watches Scott mix the food coloring, red liquid fading away to light pink, and takes a deep breath. “Scott, how come you don’t want anyone to know?” he asks.

“Know what?” Scott says, then regrets his words immediately when Mason’s face falls. He presses his lips together and adds the topping to the dough, then washes his hands while he tries to find his words. Mason waits patiently, spreading the chocolate topping on another row of dough balls. “It’s just…” Scott begins. He wipes his hands slowly, and turns away from the faint fingerprints staining the dishcloth red. “If a tree falls in the forest, and no one’s there to hear it, does it really make a sound?”

Mason stares at him for a long moment. “You’re not a tree, though,” he says slowly. “If you’re just trying to protect them from knowing that you-”

“If a boy’s heart stops for fifteen minutes,” Scott says. His words ring loud and harsh through the quiet kitchen, and his hand itches for an inhaler. He takes a breath and continues. “If that happens, and no one’s there to hear it, did I really die?”

Mason slowly closes his mouth. They finish decorating the conchas in silence. “Hey,” Mason says quietly, holding up the last concha towards Scott. “Did I do okay?”

Scott doesn’t look at the concha in Mason’s hand, lines cutting through the pink topping in the perfect shape of a shell. Instead, he meets Mason’s hesitant gaze and says, “You did just fine.”

Mason ducks his head with a smile. “Seriously, though,” he says determinedly to his shoelaces, “is there anything I can do to help?”

Scott huffs out a laugh. “I should be the one asking you that.”

“I’m not the one who-” Mason shuts his mouth abruptly and starts stacking empty bowls in the sink. “I was fine,” he says instead.

“You were the one who had to hear my heart stop.”

“That’s not even close to _being_ the one whose heart stopped,” Mason says. Scott shrugs. “Scott, it’s really not. I mean it. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“You were alone,” Scott says. “And you were the reason I didn’t die alone.”

It’s easier to say to someone else, to say to the one person who was there to witness it. He died. His heart stopped beating, and he died. Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes, and Mason had never left him. He begins to say, “I’m sorry,” but Mason cuts him off.

“Please,” Mason says, face pained, “please tell me you weren’t about to apologize for _dying_.”

Scott closes his mouth. He’s caused enough people pain as it is. Mason leans against the counter next to him, close enough for comfort but not so close that it’s stifling, and the clock ticks by as the dough slowly rises.

 

“Found it!”

Mom skips into the kitchen with an armful of ingredients. “Oh, and perfect timing, too, looks like the conchas are just about ready to go in the oven. Scott, could you preheat – oh, thanks for washing everything!”

Scott blinks at the dishrack piled high with clean bowls. He turns to Mason. “You didn’t have to-”

“It’s the least I could do,” Mason says, shrugging. He grins at Mom. “How can I help?”

Scott watches Mom guide Mason through the steps to make hot chocolate. Her smile comes easier, not nearly as strained as before, and she doesn’t hold herself distant from Mason’s earnest attentiveness. The sun sits higher above the clouds, now, shining brighter and warmer through the window, and with Mason laughing alongside Mom, the kitchen almost feels alive again.

Mason had never left him when he’d died, and Mason still isn’t leaving him now, and…Scott doesn’t understand why, to be honest. He doesn’t understand why Mason still believes in him. _He_ doesn’t even believe in him.

But he’s grateful that Mason does.

The oven dings, and Scott quickly takes out the conchas while Mom moves the cooling saucepan to the counter. “Now, Mason,” Mom says while Mason nods intently, “the key to a truly delicious Mexican hot chocolate is the froth. Scott, would you do the honors?”

“Sure,” Scott says. He opens the drawer to search for a whisk, but stops when Mom holds out Abuela’s molinillo. “I didn’t know we still had this.”

“Found it in one of the boxes,” Mom says. Her mouth twists for a moment, rueful and apologetic, then smooths out into a smile. “Think it’s about time we started using it again.”

“Whoa,” Mason says, staring at the molinillo with wide eyes. “That is so cool. You use that to make the froth?”

“Yeah, like this-” Scott sets the molinillo in the saucepan and spins it between his hands until a froth forms. “Wanna try?”

“Sure!” Mason takes the molinillo and spins it slowly in the saucepan.

“Go a little faster.” Scott watches the molinillo speed up and splash through the froth under Mason’s hands. “There, you’re getting the hang of it.”

“That is definitely harder than it looks,” Mason says while Mom washes the molinillo. “How’d you get so good at it?”

“Practice,” Scott says with a shrug. “We used to – we’ve done this a lot. Making conchas and hot chocolate.”

“You’re welcome to join us when we make them again next weekend, Mason,” Mom adds. Scott turns to her quickly, and she squeezes his side in a hug. It doesn’t feel like before, like Mom’s stilted attempts to dredge up a dying a tradition and Scott’s half-hearted reluctance. This time, it feels like…Scott doesn’t know what. But it feels like _something_.

Mason stares determinedly down at the saucepan as he pours its contents into three mugs. “Thank you,” he says. “But, uh, I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want,” Scott says. He pulls out Mom’s chair and carries the conchas to the table. The recipe was never really meant for just two. “But you’re welcome here anytime. I mean it.”

Mason relaxes as he sits down in the third chair. “I’d like that, then,” he says with a quiet smile, and sips his chocolate. “Wow. This is _amazing_.”

“The froth makes it even better, right?” Mom asks. She tears off the corner of a chocolate concha and uses it to scoop froth from her chocolate.

Mason nods eagerly, copying her motions. “Maybe sometime we could go to that Mexican market and you could show me proper chocolate to buy for this. I know the American stuff just isn’t the same.”

“It’s not terrible,” Mom says with a laugh. “And I’d love to take you sometime. Scott and I haven’t gone in ages.”

“You know, I’m pretty sure there’s a diner near there that makes the _best_ biscuits and gravy. Have you been there? Oh, you _need_ to try their gravy, it’s the best I’ve ever had in NorCal…”

The clock ticks by, soft and rhythmic while Mom and Mason continue their conversation. Scott takes a pink concha and dips the edge into his mug, holds it in both hands while hot chocolate dribbles down his wrist. He takes a bite. It tastes sweet.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say [hi](http://pocketlass.tumblr.com)!


End file.
